


Eccentricities

by LadyRhiyana



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon (sort of), Brotherly Affection (Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha style), Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-22 11:47:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22215607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRhiyana/pseuds/LadyRhiyana
Summary: After Izayoi's death, Sesshoumaru chooses to take Inuyasha in. At least for a little while.
Relationships: InuYasha & Sesshoumaru (InuYasha)
Comments: 38
Kudos: 192





	1. Eccentricities

**Author's Note:**

> I'm bringing a few more of my old fics over from ff.net. This one was written in 2005-2006. 
> 
> I have made a few edits (particularly to the first chapter), just to make it read a bit better.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshoumaru acquires the first of his eccentricities.

The human woman was dead. 

Sesshoumaru was now faced with a choice. He’d hoped it could be put off for a few years yet – at least until the hanyou matured – but Inuyasha was only six years old, far too young to take care of himself. 

The boy was his father’s crowning folly. In his later years, the Inu no Taishou had grown increasingly whimsical: he’d adopted a number of eccentric retainers; he’d begun to show mercy and compassion in his dealings; and he’d allowed humans with their firefly lives to proliferate on his lands. He’d taken a human wife, fathered a half-breed son, and had died to protect them. 

In the chaos following his death, Sesshoumaru had sent mother and child back to her family rather than kill them outright; he’d hoped that the problem might solve itself while he secured his hold on his father’s territories. 

It had not. 

And now the human woman was dead, and the problem of Inuyasha had once again fallen into his lap. 

** 

For the last few days he’d watched the human castle from the trees, scaring away most of the lesser youkai and local wildlife. The human guards, blind to most of the ways of the wild, had not noticed this telltale sign of a dangerous predator’s presence – 

But Inuyasha had. 

The six year old boy, with his ridiculous ears and his blunted, flawed senses, had been glancing instinctively – apprehensively – in his direction for almost three days, sniffing the wind at every chance he could get. Curious to see just how well developed those senses were, Sesshoumaru allowed the boy to catch his scent, to sense his youki, and watched in detached amusement as Inuyasha frowned, sensing both a threat and a likeness, and slipped away to come in search of him, radiating defiance, apprehension and curiosity all at once. 

Straight up the hill towards the trees he came, standing out in his oversized red clothing and his vivid, inhuman colouring – it was not the wisest of moves for a very young, very small, very _vulnerable_ hanyou. It was fortunate for him that Sesshoumaru himself had scared all the other predators away. 

_He_ was the scariest thing in the woods, and happily for Inuyasha he had no intention of harming him. Yet.

The boy came to the edge of the tree line, visibly nervous now and yet still filled with determination. “I know you’re there,” he called out. “Come out so I can see you.”

Sesshoumaru moved slowly out of the shadows and into the boy’s line of vision. He knew the effect this sudden materialization had on others – and he wondered how Inuyasha would take it.

The boy’s eyes widened as he took in Sesshoumaru’s appearance. “You’re…” he breathed, “You’re like me!” He indicated his tangled white hair and his wide golden eyes. 

Sesshoumaru controlled a start of revulsion at being compared to a hanyou, telling himself that he was indeed far more like the boy than the boy’s human family. It was not a welcome revelation.

“Are you like my father? Did you…did you know him?” There was real excitement in the boy’s voice now, and all of his caution seemed to have vanished with the realization of similarity. He was excited, and ridiculously hopeful – and Sesshoumaru knew that with his next few words he could crush the hanyou’s hopes and dreams underneath his foot, or he could accept the ties of kinship and be forever bound to a flawed, weak, half-breed who would bring him nothing but trouble. 

And yet his father had died for this weakling – this weakling who had sensed him and come in search of him, seemingly oblivious to any of the dire fates that could befall stray hanyou at the hands of strange youkai, whether they smelled similar or not. His father had died for this strange, flawed reflection who was looking at him very warily now, because he had been staring at him for more than a minute without speaking. 

And then, as he watched, the excitement dimmed, the expectations died, and disappointment showed in the boy’s eyes – Sesshoumaru could see that it was not the first time – but instead of a quivering lip and tears, the eyes narrowed, the mouth twisted into a snarl exposing small milk fangs, and Inuyasha glared furiously at him. 

“Fine then!” he spat. “I don’t care – he was weak anyway. I’ll never be weak like that… I don’t need you or anyone!” He finished his incoherent tirade, whirled furiously and began to run off down the hill, and Sesshoumaru, staring after him in exasperation and irritation and amusement, made his decision. 

“Inuyasha.” His quiet, authoritative voice stopped the young boy in his tracks. “Do not refer to our father in such a manner again.”

Inuyasha turned around slowly, eyes wide and unbelieving. He latched onto the only part of that statement he understood. “Our father?” he repeated.

Sesshoumaru could tolerate tantrums, to a point; he would not tolerate stupidity. “We are half-brothers,” he said flatly. 

Wary, cautious hope began to dawn in Inuyasha’s eyes, but thankfully he did not express it. “Will you take me with you?” he asked. “Away from here?” 

Sesshoumaru shrugged. “Do as you wish.” He turned his back on the boy and the humans and moved back into the wood, merging easily with the shadows and the unknown. There was a moment of shocked silence behind him, and then a swift patter of feet as Inuyasha ran after him, falling in behind him, dogging his footsteps as closely as he could, given his much shorter legs.

Sesshoumaru made no allowances. Inuyasha asked for none. And the new Lord of the West acquired the first of his own eccentricities.


	2. The First Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “When I grow up,” Inuyasha began tentatively, “will I be like you?”

Inuyasha watched the youkai from the corner of his eye. There was no doubt he was a youkai; apart from the obvious physical differences, no human would ever manage to project that kind of sheer superiority and indifference. 

Nothing would ever touch him – not disease, not frailty, not even time itself – because he was not fully part of this world, as humans were. This white, ghostly figure who called himself his half-brother would never die, never weaken, and never fail.

Perhaps he should have been afraid. He could feel the power radiating from him, and he could see the claw-tipped fingers, but somehow they reassured him, made him feel safe. Inuyasha held up his own hands, looked at the small, still slightly chubby fingers and the miniscule claws, and then looked across to see the other watching him. 

“They will grow,” said that deep, emotionless voice. 

He flushed. The youkai watched him for a while longer, and then looked away. It happened often, this quiet puzzlement, as if the youkai did not quite know what to make of Inuyasha. 

They had stopped for the night in a small clearing in the forest. There was a small fire burning between them, more because Inuyasha had never before been alone in the forest at night than for any need for warmth and security. He had tried not to show his unease as the darkness fell and the unfamiliar sounds began, but the youkai must have sensed it somehow, and had started the fire without a word.

“When I grow up,” Inuyasha began tentatively, “will I be like you?”

Those flat golden eyes turned back to him, reflected firelight making them glow hellishly. Inuyasha swallowed nervously, but made a point of raising his chin and staring back defiantly. 

_Never let them see your fear._

His mother had told him that, when the village children had taunted him, calling him a demon, six of them attacking him at once because they were too scared to come at him individually – and so they should be. He may be young, and very small, but he still had claws and fangs, and had been forced to learn how to use them.

“Like me?” the youkai said flatly. 

“Strong,” he explained. “The other children used to call me a demon and throw stones at me – and I couldn’t do much about it, because I’m too small.” 

He drew in a breath and looked up at that blank face, and the old hurts came pouring out. “And I couldn’t protect my mother because the healer would not come to our house – if I was older and stronger I could have forced them…!” 

He clenched his fists. “I want to be strong, so strong that no one will ever pick on me again, so strong that I can force others to do what I want! Strong like you,” he said, his voice quiet and vulnerable now. 

Something flashed through the youkai’s eyes. It might have been amusement, or empathy, or even pity. Whatever it was, Inuyasha couldn’t stand it – he got to his feet and prepared to throw himself across the fire, aiming to smash that patient inscrutability, but the youkai held up a hand, staying his movement. 

“Your mother was human, and you are a hanyou.” He said flatly. “You will never be as strong as me.” Inuyasha’s face fell and his eyes widened, huge and betrayed, but one of those striped, claw-tipped hands reached over to him and gripped his chin, forcing his eyes up. “But you are the son of the Great Demon of the West. Hanyou or not, his blood, his strength, runs through your veins –“

Inuyasha’s eyes widened. “It’s true, then? My father was the Inu no Taishou? My mother always said so, but I never…”

“It is true.” 

Inuyasha’s voice was very small as he continued, pressing cautiously on an old, old wound. “And did he…want…me? The villagers always said that my mother was one of his discarded whores and I was a forgotten bastard.”

The youkai grunted. A small frown appeared between his brows and his eyes darkened fractionally. “Fools. He died protecting you and that woman. Of course he wanted you.” 

He seemed upset that Inuyasha would ever have believed something so dishonourable. There was a slight, fraught pause, and then once more, he pinned Inuyasha with his glowing eyes. “You will be worthy of his faith in you, Inuyasha. I will make sure that you were worth his sacrifice.”


	3. The Night of the New Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sesshoumaru is the most dangerous being in the forest.

On the night of the new moon, Inuyasha changed. Sesshoumaru came back to the campsite to find his normally belligerent, hotheaded half-brother perched, shivering, on the highest tree limb he could possibly reach – black haired, dark eyed, and human. 

It had not occurred to Sesshoumaru that Inuyasha, too, would be subject to this particularly hanyou curse. Izayoi, though, had obviously prepared her son well – he looked thoroughly spooked, his eyes wide as if he saw everything around him as a threat. 

On this night, of all nights, it was true. The Inu no Taishou’s blood would avail him nothing; while he was vulnerable like this, he was prey to even the lowest and most primitive predators, whether youkai, animal, or even human. 

Inuyasha’s shivering, barely suppressed wariness told him that he had already learned this lesson – the hard way.

For some strange reason, it irritated Sesshoumaru. Intellectually, he knew that Inuyasha would never be truly safe on this night, but somehow the thought of his father’s son reduced to cowering in a tree was almost too much to bear. He had taken the whelp with him, had allowed him to trail after him like an ill-trained puppy, had put up with his hotheaded bluster, his obstinacy, and his painful naivete, and now the boy was shivering and shrinking away from him, his fear rank and disastrously obvious. 

After all he’d done for the whelp, Inuyasha had the gall to fear him. If Sesshoumaru had wanted to kill him he’d have done it long ago.

****************

Had he but known it, Sesshoumaru’s fierce, impassive glare was not helping to calm Inuyasha’s fear. Though he had been traveling with his brother for three weeks now, Inuyasha was still wary of Sesshoumaru. Fiercely determined not to show it, he’d covered the fear with insolence, stubbornness and bluster, but that had been when he’d had claws and a much tougher body.

The admonitory, disciplinary blows Sesshoumaru resorted to when his patience ran out normally caused nothing more than a nasty bruise. But now – now his brother could do him real harm with even the slightest flick of his finger. And those golden eyes were so utterly inhuman, so devoid of any warmth or compassion.

Inuyasha couldn’t help it. He shrank back against the tree trunk, pinned and mesmerized by that stare, for the first time truly aware – with the instinct of a victim – of just how dangerous a predator Sesshoumaru truly was. 

But then he spoke. “I did not think you such a coward, Inuyasha.”

“But…” Inuyasha sputtered, “but Haha-ue said that while I’m human –” 

“Hnn.” Sesshoumaru seemed to consider this. “She was right. But face your fear like a true son of our father. Never, ever let me catch you cowering and sniveling again.” 

Slowly, with infinite, wild grace, Sesshoumaru sat down with his back to the tree trunk and looked out past the fire and into the darkness. “I am the most dangerous being in this forest,” he said. “Nothing will approach while I am near.”

They spent the rest of the night in that manner: Sesshoumaru supremely arrogant and unconcerned, his eyes half-closed and his body glimmering white in the darkness, and Inuyasha still on his tree branch but controlling his fear, constantly reassuring himself of Sesshoumaru’s presence and protection.

_I am the most dangerous being in this forest._

Inuyasha could easily believe it. 

******************* 

As the sun rose the next morning, Inuyasha rejoiced to feel the transformation reverse as he returned to his normal state. He felt his fingernails lengthen and harden, returning to the familiar, reassuring claws, felt the old strength flood back into his body as his senses returned, and his confidence with them. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his hair revert to its normal white, and he let out a long, thankful sigh of relief. Last night had been the first new moon he had ever spent outside, without his mother’s protection and reassurance.

Reckless once more, he leapt down from his perch and landed in a crouch beside Sesshoumaru, who was still sitting against the tree. Turning his head very slowly, his brother chose to acknowledge him, favouring him with a blank stare. 

Inuyasha stared back seriously. “Last night,” he said slowly, unaccustomed to difficult concepts and questions of emotion. “I… thank you.”

Sesshoumaru’s gaze became chilling and haughty. Ignoring it, Inuyasha forced himself to continue. “For keeping watch, I mean.” He trailed off, withered under the wordless disapproval. 

“While you are young and weak,” Inuyasha’s awe-inspiring, utterly alien elder brother said flatly, “I will keep watch with the new moon. Afterwards, you’d best be able to defend yourself.”


	4. Hunting Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inuyasha learns to hunt.

“Sesshoumaru!” Inuyasha called, bounding gleefully up to him, baby teeth bared in fierce, feral joy. “See – I caught one.”

Dangling from the young hanyou’s hand was a torn and mangled field mouse. 

Sesshoumaru eyed it in some distaste. “And how long did it take you?” 

“Half an hour.” Inuyasha’s ears drooped. “I tried really hard –” he stared at his elder brother. “I did everything you taught me.”

“Hnn. Practice more, then.”

Undisturbed by Sesshoumaru’s lukewarm response, Inuyasha happily turned to go back to the meadow, where he no doubt intended more mayhem against the hapless inhabitants. Sesshoumaru watched him impassively, noting with displeasure that he had forgotten the dead field mouse behind. 

With one casual flick of his wrist, he incinerated it.


	5. 3 different POVs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 3 different POVs.

**1\. The western youkai**

Time passed. 

Sesshoumaru’s subjects, deeply unsettled by the Inu no Taishou’s suicidal love, were reassured when the new lord showed no inclination towards mercy, compassion or tolerance. He may be aloof, almost insufferably superior, and maddeningly hard to read, but at least he was steady; he always spoke the truth, no matter how harsh, and he destroyed anyone who crossed him – friend and enemy alike – with the same objective impartiality. 

However, for centuries he had made his opinions admirably clear, openly stating his distaste for hanyou and his displeasure with any who had congress with humans. Therefore, it was understandably difficult to see why, having made such unequivocal statements, he had taken his hanyou half-brother under his protection.

Some of the more indiscreet grumbled. They whispered amongst themselves, exchanging glances and raising their brows, but even they dared not speak out against it – not publicly, at least, and most definitely not to Sesshoumaru’s face. The Lord had made it quite clear that he would destroy any who questioned his actions; oddly enough, that was the only reassuring element in this deeply sordid affair. At least he had not gone completely soft. 

The first rash, foolish pup that he tore apart for his discourtesy and presumption settled the matter, and then there was no need for any further examples. 

**2\. Inuyasha**

Inuyasha went with his older brother on his solitary progress over his lands. It had been two years since his mother’s death, and Inuyasha – now eight years old – was growing taller and stronger. He had graduated from field mice and small birds to rabbits and, occasionally, very small fawns – 

(Younger, slower than their mothers, the fawns were infinitely more vulnerable. Their meat was softer, too.) 

Sesshoumaru had also taught him how to use his first power, the Sankon Tessou. It was weak still, but power would come, Sesshoumaru said; power without skill or direction, on the other hand, was less than useless. 

Sesshoumaru said many things, most of them disparaging. But when Inuyasha put his lessons into play – like that time when he had mangled the clinging vine youkai all by himself – there was a cool light of almost-approval in his elder brother’s eyes that made everything else worth it. 

**3\. Sesshoumaru**

A creature of habit and routine, Sesshoumaru vaguely resented the upheaval and disorder that Inuyasha – by his very existence – had brought to his life. He was noisy and over-enthusiastic; his presence had almost incited the western youkai to rebellion, putting Sesshoumaru to the trouble of crushing it before it became a serious problem; he required constant supervision from even the pettiest mononoke – 

But given the chance to be rid of him, Sesshoumaru knew he would not take it. 

Not yet.

The pup was not ready to survive on his own. He had courage and spirit, but he simply was not strong enough yet to be completely independent; he had not yet acquired the full range of skills needed to defend himself against any who thought him an easy meal. Sesshoumaru was determined to make a capable, canny predator out of the half-breed no matter what it took.

Hence the lessons, and the impromptu training – long ago, when he himself had been little more than a pup, Sesshoumaru’s father had taken him out into the wild and shown him how to survive. With no other frame of reference, he was teaching Inuyasha in exactly the same way. 

One day, when he had taught him everything he needed to know, he would toss the brat out on his ear and resume his normal life. But until then it was Sesshoumaru who brought down their game, Sesshoumaru who walked in the lead, constantly searching for threats, and Sesshoumaru who sat underneath Inuyasha’s tree and tolerated his fear on the nights he turned human. 

Had he known Inuyasha would be this much trouble, he would have let the pup fend for himself. But, having taken on the responsibility of raising him, he would do as good a job as he could before getting rid of him.


	6. Discipline

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inuyasha learns a little self-control.

Inuyasha was hot-tempered. 

Sesshoumaru had known from their very first meeting that the whelp disguised his fear and grief with anger, used it to bolster his courage and bravado, but he had thought it a defensive ploy. Unfortunately, he had been traveling with his younger brother long enough to know the truth, now – 

Inuyasha was extremely hot-tempered, impatient, and infuriatingly stubborn. 

There were times when it tried even Sesshoumaru’s patience – and Sesshoumaru, contrary to his reputation, was capable of a great deal of patience. 

Unfortunately for Inuyasha, the main problem with his temper was not that he might pick a fight with someone stronger, or rush into a situation without properly assessing it, or even that he might lash out without thinking, doing something he would regret later. No, Inuyasha’s problem lay in his mixed blood, and in the demonic power that came when he was pushed beyond reason into blind, basic instinct. 

Ordinary hanyou, children of petty forest spirits or water sprites, often developed monstrously in the womb, their parents’ blood simply too different to combine properly. The children of taiyoukai, those powerful enough to assume a human shape, were born with only minimal differences – save, of course, for the latent power that lay, waiting to emerge. 

It had taken _Sesshoumaru_ years before he had sufficient control of his nature to turn from his true shape into the human one. What would happen when Inuyasha, trapped in his human state from birth, tapped into his fundamental nature? When the constraints of the world fell away and he was nothing but spirit lightly clothed in flesh, when reason gave way to joyous instinct, and he was everything he had always been supposed to be? 

Inuyasha’s transformation lay in his anger. And Inuyasha was angry all the time.

************ 

“Again,” Sesshoumaru said implacably. 

Inuyasha picked himself up off the ground, wiping the blood from his mouth and glaring furiously at his elder brother. “You bastard,” he snarled. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” 

A slight warming of Sesshoumaru’s golden eyes was all the indication he gave of his amusement, but it wasn’t lost on Inuyasha. He growled, his knuckles white on the hilt of his sword. “What do you want from me, Sesshoumaru?”

“I want you to think before you act, Inuyasha. I want you to weigh the consequences before you go charging in, waving your sword. I want you, brother, to learn discipline.”

“Keh!” Inuyasha swore. “You want me to be a tight-assed prig like you! Well, I’ll tell you now –”

Sesshoumaru turned on his heel and walked away.

“Hey!” Inuyasha shouted after him. “Come back, you coward, I’m not finished with you yet! You can’t just walk away!”

But still Sesshoumaru walked away, with that slow, measured grace that had begun to infuriate Inuyasha in the last year or so. The stuck-up bastard thought himself so much better than everyone around him, especially his hanyou half-brother. 

“Sesshoumaru!” he spat, seriously considering charging Sesshomaru’s back and trying to cut him in half. But the last time he’d tried that, his beautiful, seemingly delicate brother had left him with a broken jaw, a dislocated shoulder and three broken ribs. Sesshoumaru was stronger, faster, and he had a great dislike of anyone attacking him from behind – Inuyasha had learned that much, at least.

“When you have learned to control your temper, Inuyasha, we will begin again,” spoke that flat, utterly indifferent deep voice. 

Inuyasha growled deep in his throat, his blood boiling with defiance, anger, hot resentment and any number of adolescent hormones. He watched as Sesshoumaru paced slowly into the trees, not a hair out of place, his white clothes immaculate and unstained. In comparison, his own bright red clothes were ripped, stained and bloody, his hair was full of leaves and dirt, and he had cuts and bruises all over his body. For a moment, he wavered on the edge of something _huge_ – 

[Sesshoumaru, all his senses tuned to the hanyou’s internal struggle, felt the trembling changes to his scent and body chemistry and tensed, preparing to turn back and knock the fool boy out of it –] 

Then Inuyasha’s rarely used common sense kicked in, and he reminded himself that he never, ever got anywhere attacking Sesshoumaru in anger. Slowly, very slowly, he forced the huge, alien feeling down, and deliberately banished the anger, the resentment, and the defiance. When he looked up again, his eyes were as calm as he could make them, and his grip on his sword was firm, sure, and certain. 

“Sesshoumaru,” he called out, this time in a very different tone. “I’m ready.”

His brother turned. “Are you?” he asked. 

Inuyasha ran forward, sword angled to show him. Sesshoumaru defeated him easily, of course, disarming him in three moves, but this time, as he placed the razor sharp sword at Inuyasha’s throat, there was a minute trace of approval in his eyes. 

“Again,” he said.


	7. Kikyou

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inuyasha meets Kikyou. Sesshoumaru is - concerned.

Inuyasha bounded into the clearing, all but vibrating with impatient excitement. 

Sesshoumaru, seated cross-legged under a tree, opened one eye and stared balefully at him, before closing it again and resuming his meditation. Inuyasha scowled, but by now he was used to his brother’s habits – 

“Hey!” he growled, nudging Sesshoumaru’s immaculate, white-silk clad knee with his dirty foot.

The great Western Lord’s eyebrows twitched. “Continue in this vein of behaviour, Inuyasha, and you will find yourself the recipient of my _full_ attention.”

“Keh.” Blithely, Inuyasha dismissed the threat that would make a lesser being’s blood run cold. “I’m going away for a while. There’s a human village about three days to the east.”

_That_ gained Sesshoumaru’s full attention. He opened both his eyes and fixed Inuyasha with his most exasperated glare. “A human village,” he repeated neutrally. 

“Yeah. I’ve been watching them.” He smiled, a bemused, dreamy expression that made Sesshoumaru’s eyes narrow. “There was a miko. She tried to kill me.”

**** 

Sesshoumaru supposed that he should have seen this coming. The whelp was fifteen years old, now – old enough to discover that the body is good for more than just fighting and eating. But… A human miko?

_She tried to kill me._

That, at least, showed that Inuyasha’s instincts ran moderately true. At least he hadn’t fixed on a useless, soft-voiced songbird like his mother. 

****

“Did you tell her who you were?”

“I told her I was a hanyou, yes. She said she didn’t care: that half-youkai also meant half-human.” 

“Hmm.” A remarkably insightful statement, Sesshoumaru thought sourly. “I meant, did you tell her you were my half-brother, and the son of the Inu no Taishou?”

“Well…” Inuyasha fidgeted. “No. Not really.”

Not really? “What did you tell her, then?” Would this miko, so tolerant, be so blasé if she knew that the boyish, clearly infatuated hanyou had a very dangerous, notoriously intolerant half-brother?

Under his steady, skeptical gaze, Inuyasha looked extremely uncomfortable. “I told her I’d been abandoned after my mother’s death, that you – my full-blooded half-brother – hated me and were actively trying to kill me.”

Sesshoumaru stared at him. 

“I couldn’t tell her I was still living with my elder brother, could I?” he burst out. “She doesn’t like youkai. She would have thought I was – I told her I had to look after myself, that I was all alone in the world.” 

“Inuyasha…” Sesshoumaru sighed. Then, because there was really nothing he could say, he only shook his head. 

****** 

Three days later, Inuyasha crouched high up in a tree, overlooking the human village where Kikyou lived. As he waited for her to come out, he frowned, remembering Sesshoumaru’s expression as he’d outlined the…exaggerations…he’d told Kikyou, trying to impress her. 

His elder brother was hard to read at the best of times, but that particular expression had been indecipherable; he rather thought he’d finally managed to deprive Sesshoumaru of words. Considering that acid, sardonic tongue, it was quite a feat.

A familiar, long-anticipated scent drifted on the wind, and he bounded out of the tree, landing just in front of the red- and white-clad priestess as she approached the forest. Kikyou jumped back a few steps, her hands automatically going to her bow. 

“Inuyasha!” she gasped, lowering the bow when she recognized him, her hand pressed to her heart, beating so swiftly that he could hear it from where he stood. “I didn’t see you.”

He grinned, his teeth sharp and white, his eyes inhuman gold in the half-light. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said. He could see the moment she forced herself to ignore his alien features, and the way she tried not to look too long into his eyes. 

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, fiddling with her bowstring, her thick dark hair sliding forward to cover and conceal her eyes.

He paused, and gathered his courage, willing to trust another being other than Sesshoumaru for the first time in nearly ten years. “It’s the night of the New Moon,” he answered, willing her to look up and meet his eyes squarely. “It’s my secret night.”

*** 

Hidden upwind in the shadows, his youki tightly leashed, too well concealed for either the whelp or the miko to sense him, Sesshoumaru listened as Inuyasha put his life in the girl’s hands. He bared his teeth, snarling under his breath as her eyes widened, and she put a sympathetic hand on his arm – 

_What lies are you telling her now, whelp? Do you think she will like you more, if she knows of your transformations?_

But the truth was he knew just how much Inuyasha must trust her, if he was willing to stay with her on the nights he became human, vulnerable and weak. Well, Inuyasha might trust her, but Sesshoumaru certainly didn’t. He would stay close, and keep very close watch over this girl who had so infatuated his younger brother.


	8. Sealed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You witless fool,” he growled. “How did it come to this?”

Eventually, Sesshoumaru left the whelp with his miko and resumed his former life. However, months later the rumours began – even out of sight and mind, Inuyasha still managed to create trouble. 

Exasperated, indignant, he returned to the village. 

**********

Deep in the forest, he glared up at his half-brother, his flat gaze taking in the arrow pinning Inuyasha to the tree, sealing him in eternal stasis. 

“You witless fool,” he growled. “How did it come to this?”

But there was no answer. There would be no answer, ever again: no hasty, snarled retort, no flustered, hot-tempered scowl. 

Almost, he was disappointed. 

*********


	9. Full Circle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we circle around to the beginning.

“…Sesshoumaru-sama, perhaps Inuyasha knows the location of the tomb.”

Reacting without thinking, Sesshoumaru swept his hand back and swiftly backhanded the ingratiating imp into the river. 

“Inuyasha,” he drawled, battling his temper. “I have not heard that name in some time.” Catching the falling staff, he used it to grind the imp’s head down into the water.

From the frantically churned up water, there was a choked, desperate plea for forgiveness. 

“He has been sealed for fifty years, Jaken.”

“Th-that’s why I’m telling you, Sesshoumaru-sama,” Jaken sputtered. “Th-the seal; I hear it’s been undone.”

Sesshoumaru paused. Almost reluctantly, he lifted the staff from the imp’s head and allowed him to come up to breathe. 

********** 

The last time he’d set eyes on his younger brother, Inuyasha had been pinned to a tree, his vivid, mobile face strangely blank and peaceful, all animation banished by the freezing seal. Forever frozen, all that youth and potential stopped by his miko’s spell: and now he was free. Fifteen years old, as if five long decades had not bypassed him in an eye blink.

But time had not bypassed Sesshoumaru. He’d spent the last fifty years seeking his father’s grave and the Tetsusaiga, an endless, obsessive quest for strength, for purpose, for validation. He’d pondered his father’s last riddle for years, finally understanding that the answer lay within Inuyasha himself – his hanyou brother, his father’s beloved son, his own clumsy, hot-headed, reckless charge, so long silent and still. 

********** 

_“The reincarnation of the miko Kikyou set Inuyasha free,”_ the word spread, whispers and tendrils of rumours reaching Sesshoumaru through frightened, wary mouths. _“He seeks the shards of the Shikon no Tama…”_

Inuyasha had always sought something more, something that would make him whole and reconcile the dichotomy at the heart of his existence. Sesshoumaru had made sure he understood the prejudice of the world around him, allowing him no false illusions – but youth, stubborn conviction and a jewel that could grant wishes had combined (still combined, it seemed) to make him believe he could have his wish, one way or the other.

_Fool._

As he was now, the hanyou was no match for the foes he would face on his quest. Sesshoumaru was determined to get to him – and the vital information that he held – before he was killed, and their father’s tomb was lost forever. 

It would not be too difficult to pry the information out of him. 

_“Sesshoumaru, did you ever know my mother? I don’t remember her, not well; did she regret leaving her home and family for chichi-ue? Did she love me?”_

And if the Mu-Onna failed, then there was always his impulsive, reckless, easily provoked temper – it would be easy enough to get close enough to rip out the pearl.

_“Again, Inuyasha.”_

_“Aaargghh…you superior prick! I’m gonna make you eat those words…”_

************ 

Two days later, faced with the reality of his unsealed, very much alive brother, Sesshoumaru almost hesitated. 

_“When I grow up, will I be like you? So strong that no one will ever pick on me again.”_

_“I am the most dangerous being in this forest, Inuyasha. While you are young and weak, I will watch over you.”_

But the whelp had made his choices, and they conflicted with Sesshoumaru’s design. Brother or not, he could not be allowed to stand in his way.

High on the monstrous oni’s shoulder, the facsimile of Inuyasha’s mother wailing and weeping piteously in the demon’s talons, he looked down at the shocked, angry hanyou and sneered. “Well, Inuyasha, it seems you remember your older brother’s face.”

********** 

Once, he had allowed a young, awkward boy to follow him into the wild, taking secret satisfaction in the way he struggled to keep up, asking for no allowances, stubbornly determined to persevere. But that had been sixty years ago, when the world had been a very different place.

Sesshoumaru no longer had any patience for eccentricity.

** 

**Fin**

**


End file.
